Derrick Deacon hugs his attorney after hearing he has been acquitted for a 1989 murder that he did not commit. News 12 Screenshot

A Brooklyn, N.Y., man who was wrongly convicted in a 1989 murder is taking the final steps toward justice, suing New York City and a number of police officers for civil rights violations in a federal lawsuit, the New York Post reports.

Deacon spent 25 years of his life in prison after being convicted for the murder of Anthony Wynn, 16. He was later acquitted in a 2013 retrial.

According to the Post, a Jamaican gang member admitted to the authorities that another man had killed Wynn, prompting a new trial to be opened for Deacon in June 2012. Another key witness in the murder case, Colleen Campbell, recanted her testimony and then said that officers and district attorney investigators had intimidated her into lying.

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Campbell claimed that officers threatened to take her children if she didn’t lie in her testimony to incriminate Deacon.

“Derrick Deacon spent 25 years in jail as a result of gross misconduct on the part of the detectives who investigated this case,” his lawyer, Earl Ward, said. “They intimidated a witness and suppressed evidence.”

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“I was excited but sad at the same time. Sad, in a way, about the one person that I really care about, my mom, my baby’s mom and my aunts, they all died while I was in there. I missed seeing my kids grow up,” Deacon said after his November release, the Post reports.

“I got kids, grandkids I want to send to college because I never had the opportunity to do that for my children. I have friends behind the wall still suffering, and I’d like to help them, too.”